Self, Exalted

We continue to "qualify" His work, you know? As though, somehow, if we have a keen enough grasp on Scripture, then we have attained to insight into precisely how and when He will move.

That's just not so.

We are His instruments, or we are deluded. There is nothing else.

Either we surrender to His will, or we continue in exalting what otherwise persists of our own.

We're either walking in step with His guidance, moment by moment, or we're living in some varied stage of rebellion.

Really.

If we think we understand, think we can prognosticate His will and motions, according to some device within our own intellect or being...

...we're fooling ourselves, and only striving according to the flesh.

This is not to say He doesn't give insight and foreknowledge to some. He said He would do so, without regard to age or gender, in these last days...such as are since Christ's resurrection and ascension.

But it's not a forced process.

It's not something which requires straining.

He gives.

When He gives, there is nothing but to receive. This, even having the Holy Spirit bearing witness within as to the source and truth of a thing, even as the Scriptures will also concur (if largely by presenting witness also as the same essential spirit in which was given, for also having not overtly contraindicated anything therein writ large, uncontested and uncontestable).

But there seems no...methodology adequate, except to retrospectively describe. Each unto each is so wholly solitarily comprised, of circumstance and form and substance...

...even as wholly unwavering in consistence.

Just, though...

...point is, we can't "work up" a "move of the Spirit." That mentality, in itself, evidences fleshly designs being implemented. Unto delusion.

He does allow us what we would choose to have, as it goes. So, if we want to work up a supernatural encounter? ...yeah.

Which isn't to say, even in such circumstances, He won't still work according to His will.

He does, it's seemed. In varying ways. To each, individually...according to the heart.

As, again--what is sought? Christ, Himself, or a supernatural experience?

Truth, in power and effect, or any glimpse of something which seems more vast than self?

Deliverance or distraction?

Surrender or self-exalting recreation?

Repentance or a temporary hiatus from doubts and fears?

Reconciliation with God or self-affirmation and absolution?

Worship isn't a form of recreation, is all. It's life, or nothing.
And only He can bring that to truth, for any of us.

As a solitary worship, exclusive of all else but Christ. Only to worship God. Period. Nothing else.
All things brought to subjection to a knowledge of Him.

These things are beyond human ability, given our so-limited perspective and so-dire tendency to cling more to suffering than to our safe-harbor in Christ.

He is all, or He is nothing, is the thing.

And as He is all, in all...

...if that's not the place He holds in our hearts, minds, and ways...

...we're somewhat adrift, needing desperately to cry out to Him for guidance and recovery, repentance and deliverance.

We have so highly esteemed ourselves, over course of the last couple of generations, though...that we consider ourselves somehow capable of predicting all His ways and moves, and in so doing, we also consider ourselves at times as "blocking" or "inhibiting" His movements and will.

Which is just patently false.

Even as a far-short analogy, that would be as nonsensical as a gnat expecting its flight had somehow caused or delayed the sun to light the day or the moon to rise by night...likening delays or "unusual phenomena" like eclipses to somehow be a reflection of movements undertaken or bypassed, rather than as being part of the course of those particular orbs.

Would be as like for me to say that "God will save people tomorrow," in such a way as would imply that my observation is in any way given to anything other than His will. I could even go so far as to qualify it by extending to "God will save people tomorrow even through the preaching of the Gospel of Christ Jesus," which is again just a statement of possibility, likely expectancy which could be foreseen, as it's His will to do so as Christ will have His portion...

...but, my remarking such a thing would reflect more upon me, upon my stance as regards God and my understanding of Him...than it would, in any other way, have to do with all of creation.

Remarking such a thing is a strange place to be. Because...is there desire for others to hear and then pray on that account, that God will do so, and continue to do so? He did tell us to pray for one another, and we are to pray that workers will be sent to harvest...

Or is it a remark upon self?

Are we ever free of making remarks upon ourselves, in this so utterly narcissistic age?
If at all, then only by grace.

Nothing in us would want anything other than to exalt self, simply as par for the course of being at odds with God, Himself, in an international society which is increasingly driven to become more and more introspective, reflective, and pensive...much at the cost of love of others, love of God, and knowledge of the Holy. To be self-consumed in that such way, in other words, is to be all the more driven away from God.

Which...He has allowed.

Per His divine will.

Yet, ofttimes there's a sense that the desire to intellectualize everything to the utmost degree wholly does so at the expense of a right knowledge of God. We spend such time and will attempting to fully grasp every passing idea, as though vital, without even considering His sovereignty of those such processes. We exalt ourselves even by thinking so highly of ourselves, then, as to consider ourselves worthy of endless introspection.

Rather than contemplating Christ, moreover, is the point.

To know Him is what's necessary.

Not to understand self.

Self is wretched, self is lost and impotent, apart from Christ.

And even having come to Christ, the only good in self is Christ.

Yet are we not wholly self-consumed? Even as presenting the argument for "political correctness," is that not a front for esteeming ourselves in the eyes of others, for having been so "sensitive to sensitivities" and "aware of others," when in fact the effort more generally derives from a desire to exalt self, as each individual self strives to then become known as worthy of such trepidation and concern so to have each personal preference heeded?

This is not love. It calls itself loving.
But it does such things out of pride, desire for self-exaltation.

Love seeks not to offend.
Love is patient, too, though...rather than easily offended.
It forgets wrongs.
It does not anger.
It does not seek self, not even in the guise of "accommodating others."
And it's not jealous, when others receive acclaim or consideration.
It doesn't seek for it's own likewise accommodation.
It gives, without asking...without requirement...without thought to self.
And it does not become arrogant, boastful, prideful of perceived "accomplishments."
But is kind.
Gentle.
Patient.

Humble.

Not expectant.

We seem most, though, to have become a world of attempted self-deliverers...who strive to deliver ourselves through complex extrapolations as philosophies of self and life--ever referencing self and other as the points of interest, as though our understanding and ability were sufficient to deliver us from what truly ails.

Our understanding profits us nothing.

Apart from that we know Christ, we know nothing.
We might think to know a universe full of wonders and complexities, comprehending in finite detail the mechanics of the workings of all of life and nature...
...but without a knowledge of He who created and maintains all these things, that knowledge amounts to a choked breath, hasty and insufficient.

We are incapable of being freed from self, except that Christ works deliverance in us. Gifting repentance, a further turning to Him.

Away from self.

Self would rule in Christ's stead, if it had its will.
Gladly, in the end, it won't.